Space Jam: A New Legacy Of Suck
In a blatant attempt to cash in on the growing 90s nostalgia and foist the Looney Tunes on a new generation of children, Warner Bros. tries to breathe life into Space Jam’s lungs with A New Legacy. Despite LeBron James and Don Cheadle leading the charge, this thoroughly doughy and shamelessly messy soft reboot delivers a flagrant foul to all cinemagoers.
A rogue artificial intelligence kidnaps the son of famed basketball player LeBron James, who then has to work with Bugs Bunny to win a basketball game.
Although it’s often viewed through thick rose-colored glasses and regarded as an animated classic, the original 1996 live-action/animated crossover Space Jam was by no definition a good film. However, with that being said, it was still fun enough — and it had a good soundtrack, the greatest basketball player of all time, and (the most important MVP of all) Bill Murray — but it never had the ups to match the monumental charge of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, which had essentially done everything better nearly a decade before with Film Noir instead of basketball. Directed by Joe Pytka, whose primary lane was commercials and music videos, it’s not as though the original Space Jam operated behind the veil — it was clearly designed to sell toys and branded merch, just as much as it was to sell tickets — but, with A New Legacy, Warner Bros. enters into a whole new realm of shameless transparency without lubricating us with any of the charms that made the first go-round so tolerable.
If you smashed crappier versions of TRON: Legacy and Ready Player One together, and then screwed on a Space Jam faceplate, you’d be really close to pinning the tail on this donkey-headed reboot. The specifics of the plot are strange and convoluted: a jealous A.I., whose chosen nickname, Al-G Rhythm, should be proof enough that it has no good ideas, abducts LeBron James and his son, Dom (a fictionalized version of his actual son, Bryce), into the Warner Bros.’ "Serververse,” AKA the lamest place imaginable, and challenges him to a — surprise, surprise! — basketball game. Forced to assemble a team out of Warner Bros. properties, but only allowed to build a team out of Tunes (for some reason), LeBron has to bring the Tune Squad to victory against the evil Al-G Rhythm and his team of upgraded Goons — or else LeBron, Dom, and everyone Dom’s made-up game development software zapped into the Serververse will be stuck there FOREVER.
The jokes are certainly loony, but it’s hard to make sense of the humor (if you want to call it that), let along laugh at it, most of the time. For instance, take the premise with the studio-created A.I. that makes up movies for them; is Warner Bros. actually taking the piss out of itself in a cheeky way, or is it some kind of undisguised, confessional honesty about how they truly come up with some of the crap they put out? Because — and here’s the thing — for all its incoherence, ADHD pacing, terrible jokes, and bad writing, this film could have very well been written by an actual algorithm, or even A.W.E.S.O.M.-O 4000 for that matter. The funniest thing about A New Legacy has nothing to do with the movie really; it’s that it took six writers (one of which, Keenan Coogler, is presumably present because of the nepotistic pull of Ryan Coogler, who served as a producer) to cook up this nonsense.
The biggest question this sloppy stinker raises is, who is this really for? And it’s a somewhat tough question to answer. For brand-new, fresh-eyed babies, it might be somewhat enjoyable, but it’s noticeably devoid of the emotionality and heart which has become a palpable staple of children’s entertainment (see Pixar). Plus, we seriously doubt they’ll be able to follow what’s going on (because at times, even as adults, it was difficult), let alone get the references. For those hoping for a taste of nostalgia, be prepared for disappointment because you won’t be reliving any of your youth here. The film is bizarrely self-aware, but not self-aware enough to know that much, if not all, of what it’s doing is misguided or just plain ole bad. For instance, some of the “jokes,” like the montage that ballistically riffles through various WB IP, are pointed directly at those nostalgia seekers, but they’re not used to any meaningful end; they’re just Looney Tunes characters engaging with other film properties, and that’s the joke. Other head-scratching behavior includes weird animation choices and a basketball showdown crammed full with WB IP characters as background, which serve no higher purpose or function other than they are there for you to go, “Oh, look, the Droogs from A Clockwork Orange! How neat! I know that movie and knowing stuff is cool!” Then, of course, there’s the whole ethical dilemma its plot kicks up with the game development software and its involuntary zapping of human beings into the Serververse, which isn’t addressed or even acknowledged at all.
Overall, there’s no space and no jams in this suckfest. A New Legacy is chock-full of bad creative decisions (like the decision to animate LeBron or unnecessarily weave in unrelated IP for no reason) that culminate into one sloppy disaster. There’s a few moments that work and a couple laughs to be had (the best of which involves Michael Jordan), but most of the time, it’s agonizing to sit through — and that’s not coming from someone with any particular attachments to the 90s or the original.
Recommendation: If being trapped in a glitchy, modernized NBA Jam sounds fun to you, then by all means try to endure all two-hours of this puppy.
Rating: 1 big ole questionable mess outta 5.
What do you think? We want to know. Share your thoughts and feelings in the comments section below, and as always, remember to viddy well!